The Shipping Questionnaire
by Piccylo
Summary: 35 questions meme. Five different couples have ten children in all: Tenshinhan/Lunch-DB, Jiraiya/Tsunade-Nar, Rin/Kakashi-Nar, Agatha/Gilgamesh-GG, Axel/Roxas-KH. It's bloody insane. Altered mental state encouraged for reading.
1. Couples

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these things! I really would go into the big spiel about not being related to the company, but good lord, these are four completely different fandoms! My continued warning will be that this entire fic will not make much sense, includes homosexuality, questionable behavior, alcohol, crossovers, and cursing.

This entire fic will be based on a questionnaire meme in The Muse Bunny dealing with shipping. As such, there's... a lot of pairings in this fic. Five specifically, but vague inclusions outside of them. Each chapter is one of the questions, thus the congruency between chapters will be pretty much nil after the 2nd chapter, and there will be a total of 35 chapters. My writing the fic is mostly out of pure boredom; other people aren't making a fic out of the meme as far as I know. If you want "spoilers" for the chapters, then you could totally find my post for the meme on The Muse Bunny. But that's only if you're that crazy.

I do want you guys to realize: I don't usually do this. I rarely ship even idly, and I actually hate fics where a pairing has _children_. On top of that, I hate most crossovers.

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* * *

Question #1: What couples do you ship?_

Perhaps this is the sort of acceptance Tenshinhan really needed.

Everyone endures a shock to their identity by some point if they live long enough. Tenshinhan lived long enough to regret his death twice, and one of those times actually was his death. He often would lie in his bed wide awake, even though he was tired from a full day of training, just thinking on that regret and its purpose. Not meditating. Just laying there, thinking.

The recollection of that regret will spike with a sweet pain in his chest that ran through his neck, climbing up the ascent made by the futon pillow, to finally spread out behind his face, congregating some behind his three eyes before diffusing up into his bare scalp. This occurred when Lunch (or Kushami) entered the room and his third eye would happen to fall on her. But when she crawled into bed with him and cuddled up to his scarred and muscled form, when he felt her softness and heat, soft even when Kushami, hot even when Lunch, that pain would ache into him as if in a death grip, but forced to let go as that softness and warmth swept over him. It was always, always, _always_ defeated.

The regret of a three-eyed man was very strong, he decided, but the hope of two women who lived as one was unmatched, at an entirely different level. Just as he could not defeat Son Goku in the art of battle, he couldn't beat her in the art of life and love. And he was just beginning to really accept that he would need to learn from her to continue in strength as he'd learned from his defeats from Goku.

That struggle of pain vs. pleasure reenacted itself again as Lunch, with her purple curls bouncing, changed clothes in their room and slipped into the bed with him. When it predictably ended, he turned his head and smiled at her.

She giggled. "What are you thinking about?"

"Many things," he answered vaguely. He could give vague answers to Lunch. Kushami would've yelled at him and hit him with a pillow before giving him a forceful kiss.

Lunch merely continued smiling softly back at him. "I've been thinking about a lot of things today, too."

"Like what?"

"The others. Their families. Good things and bad things that have happened. Things I've done that I don't know. I think I went out somewhere last night while I was transformed, but I don't know where I went. I thought about that, too, especially since I don't think I told you where I went, either."

"No, you didn't. I wasn't even aware that you were out."

"I must have snuck out again. I wonder why I did that?"

Tenshinhan laughed and nuzzled her neck, enjoying the contentment swarming through him. "Who knows? I'm sure if it's important I'll find out, one way or another."

She giggled again. "I just hope it didn't follow her back."

"If there is trouble, I'll take care of it like I always do." He looked at her with a smile. "Right?"

She smiled back. "Right."

.-.-.

Tsunade lost the bet?

No, she was sure she won. She was sure that because Jiraiya just had to tempt fate and disregard his own personal safety, she was the last one of her old team. The last of the Sannin. She was sure that Pain had finished him off completely, for good, forever. She was sure the fool was dead, defeated by the leader of the Akatsuki, Pain.

But here was the stupid big perverted idiot standing before her, looking as beaten, battered, bloody, and half-drowned as he ever did when he was caught sneaking into bathhouses. Alive. Very, very alive. Almost perversely alive. He grinned a wide grin and scratched his head.

"Were you worried?"

She wanted to hit him so badly that her balled fists shook enough for an earthquake. Her eyes stung as they reddened up with her anger. Her lip bled as she constrained her screams of rage with a clamped jaw restricting her flesh with her own teeth. Yet despite all of this fury, when she stepped towards him, her arms came down and around his shoulders, her face came forward to shove her pouring tears into his breast, and her mouth released strong, shaky sobs.

Tsunade wanted to scream every obscenity her burning mind could think straight up into his face with super-heated dragon breath, but she never had the chance as her tongue kept looping, "You're alive, you're alive, you're alive, you're alive..." Jiraiya's own hands finally fell on her back and stayed there.

Her will triumphed before long and she was able to pull herself upright. "You bastard, I thought you were dead," she sobbed out. It wasn't as loud or angry as she wanted it to be, but it will do for now.

"I told you that you would loose the bet, didn't I?" He said with a broad, tired smile.

She felt another sob come as she saw that smile, but she lucked out with her strong rise of anger that allowed her to punch him square in the jaw instead. The force was enough to send him into an adjacent wall and crack a hole into it. He didn't go through it and into the next wall, though, so it wasn't as strong as she'd hoped.

He jerked his head forward from where it'd gone through that hole and rubbed it, then checked to see if his jaw was still attached. He managed to say, "I guess I deserved that. Not as bad as the time you caught me peeking, though."

"I should give you another one for being so stupid!"

"I don't think I could handle another one." That might have been true, but he was looking up at her and trying to smile again. "Forgive me?"

"Forgive you?! After what you just did?!"

"You're too old to be keeping a grudge, you know. It's not good for your health. You don't want to turn into a demon after you die, do you?"

Oh that definitely had to be enough. She stomped over, a storm brewing around her from the pure, raw violence of her anger, as if all the things she was going to do to him were buzzing around her like a thick swarm of black flies. Each step was stronger and more fierce, and surely any man being approached in such a way would be cowering and begging for mercy. The last step, that ended right where Jiraiya's tattered robes on the ground began, was the strongest and shook the ground below it threateningly. The force was so great that all of the emotion poured out with the energy, sapping and draining itself from her at extreme speed, making her numb and weak all at once. She fell to her knees with the suddenness of being shut off, now matching his eye line with her own. Both were grounded at the same level.

Every spiteful thought had run out with that last stomp, and she felt a little empty. She stared at him a moment wondering why she was angry, feeling a little dejected from her rage flying away so easily. Words eventually came through her mouth that satisfied her.

"You owe me a drink, you bastard."

Perhaps he did actually tense up, because he softened when hearing that. His dumb grin had a hint of smart-ass in it, and he said, "No, you owe me. The bet was everything you had, remember?"

"Bastard," she said, and after a long moment, pulled herself back up to standing, held out a hand to pull him up as well, and they began walking towards the nearest bar. The air between them that usually would be filled with their endless bickering was comfortably silent for once. It did not sybolize distance caused by Orochimaru or Dan or any of the usual problems. They were close. There was no room for words, for the space was eradicated as their shoulders touched each other. The drinking was similarly silent, only with some light reminiscing.

Their night was, overall, without words, because their words were the kind that pad the area with vexing, something that which was unneeded, and other words were the ones that really hurt, which had already served its purpose. It was not always silent, but their mouths didn't have room to make words.

.-.-.

Obsession could take someone over and make them something completely different. Kakashi was obsessed, but he didn't act any different, so he supposed that he was already obsessed over Rin from long ago.

It was a little like his Icha Icha books, if you want to make a comparison. Whenever he had the chance, he wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled his masked face into her nape like a happy dog that found its master again. This usually made her laugh and kiss him on the cheek right where his mask ended. This was a small treat to him, and he greedily and thankfully accepted it like the loyal, contented mutt he was, usually still begging for more. Sometimes he wanted to savor her, instead; to take his time. He was very careful to make sure the moment wasn't going to be spoiled when he was in this mood. Once he mused that he would have shut his eyes and ears if Naruto threatened to reveal about the shape of her breast to obtain the bell.

Very loyal, very faithful, every moment he can filling it with her. There were, of course, times that she was busy, so he might have to read those times instead. That's okay; he still liked his books quite a bit. Maybe he enjoyed them more because of this. And his team still provided him entertainment at times. He wasn't that much later to meetings than before, but he felt he had better excuse now. He didn't really need to make up excuses as much anymore. Of course, he still absolutely did, because that was just habit by this point. The students didn't react any differently, either; maybe they would have freaked out if he had, instead, told them the truth? Eh well, who cares about things like that, hmm?

Moving in with each other seemed like the most logical thing ever to him; it meant less energy and time wasted getting to her apartment from his, and he could get the optimum amount of exposure to her without hindering her own schedule. Luckily for him Rin was more capable of thinking outside of love's clouding rationalization, insisting that they take it slow and relearn each other. She did eventually move in, but only after they were reintegrated substantially into each other's lives that they were fully compatible. The move made his place substantially more crowded, but it was otherwise painless.

The bigger bed made it even more crowded, and they spoke in increasingly more frequency about getting a bigger apartment. With how hard it could be to move around the apartment (despite Rin's hospital-obsessive cleanliness) they were coming to understand that it was either get rid of things or move, because going back to a smaller bed, although delightfully snug, simply wasn't an option considering how much they used it (Kakashi had considered getting a large mirror as well since it wouldn't be in the way on the ceiling).

They were having one such discussion (about the apartment, not about the mirror) that was starting to turn more into an argument, which Kakashi disliked. But Rin was in an inconsolable mood and insisted that they needed a change. "I've had it up to _here_ with cleaning and sorting things away when there simply isn't enough room! If we can't get rid of all this junk, we need to move; the bedroom is too small, anyway."

"I'll agree on that last part," he answered carefully, "But there isn't exactly a great market for apartments in Konoha, you know. Can we even afford to move?"

"We'll just have to manage it!" she growled and crossed her arms, "But if I have to put away another scroll only to find that every single space has been filled up by some other object, I'll scream."

He glanced around at their surroundings. Indeed, their living space really was proof that the universe abhors a vacuum, as for every item out on the floor or occupying a tabletop, chair, or counter, there were ten items stuffed in a storage space simply to keep it out of the way. And the worst thing was they quite often needed almost every object they owned, so they'd frequently have to dig out what they needed and start the whole process of reorganizing over again.

Finally Kakashi nodded in acceptance. "We'll need to get a new place sometime anyway, right? I'll start looking."

Rin's bad mood swung away like a heavy pendulum over to the opposite side of the spectrum and she nearly jumped into Kakashi's lap. Not that this behavior wasn't nice—having her in his lap, anyway, because he certainly wasn't going to complain about that—but Rin's attitude was usually so temperate.

.-.-.

Okay, so it took some hard pressing and the reemergence of Klaus' long lost friends to get him to come around about the marriage, but perhaps he was somewhat consoled knowing that this union would bring fantastic luck in future offspring. After all, the Heterodynes almost always breed true, and Agatha herself was a powerful spark in her own right, similarly lacking her ancestry's violent streak in the same way Bill and Barry did, despite her mother's heritage.

Besides, he could gain some very good benefits from this.

At this moment, however, Gilgamesh and Agatha were on Castle Wulfenbach—perhaps for the first time since she'd been taken aboard as "Agatha Clay"—and were walking down its corridors towards a lab, Zoing and the goldfish at their heels. They seemed to be deep in some sort of debate regarding whether or not a colony of phosphoric mayflies could be harnessed to power a music box.

"Excuse me." A harsh, female voice demanded. Von Pinn stepped out into the path before them, her head high and her monocle set perfectly on her cheekbone.

Agatha's brows furrowed and she regarded her coldly. Useful Von Pinn may be, but tolerable was a different matter. In truth, Agatha was still having difficulty trusting her _at all_ after what she had done to her adoptive parents, Punch and Judy, but she tried to set this aside with knowledge that she did mean well, and that Gil was pretty much raised by her and was likely her favorite among those she helped rear in the floating castle. Gil regarded her with the cautious but warm respect one might grant their overbearing grandmother.

"I have been sent to inform you about the status of the materials you requested," she continued without prompting, "The brass brackets will be late. The specific cold iron you asked for is out of stock but they're doing their best to allocate it. And the shipment of grape jelly has come in today, all three thousand pounds of it. It was accompanied by the backordered tar from last month. Is this satisfactory?"

Gil smiled. "That should do very well, Von Pinn. How late will those brackets and the iron be?"

"The brackets should only be another day; they were attacked and lost a wheel. The iron is estimated another three weeks before they get it in their own storehouses."

"Cancel off that iron, then. I can get it elsewhere." He turned to Agatha. "That is, if you think the Mongolian Lizard tribe will ship this far."

Agatha shrugged in indifference. "I don't see why not. If nothing else, we can supply the ships. Those new fliers should run a pretty good distance in a short time. If I could get the prototype away from Wooster, I could probably rig up a machine to mass produce them."

"Very well, I will convey your orders." Von Pinn declared before walking out as if hovering a centimeter over the floor, her back perfectly straight at all times. Agatha sighed in her wake.

Gil gave her a small smile. "I'm very glad that you're getting used to all this. You adjust very well, you know?"

"I'm not going to let her ruin my mood," Agatha responded quickly, "I've got more important things to worry about. Like that dimensional door we've been dismantling and examining. Right?"

"Yes, that's true. I'm very excited about what will come of that. I'm sure Theo would find it utterly fascinating, too, since it incorporates a lot of Mongfish signature design."

"I guess he can take a look at it, too… after I get to rip into it!"

"Surely you don't intend to go into it alone?"

Agatha looked smug. "What if I did?"

"Come on, Agatha! If you don't at least let me in on it, I'm not going to let you use any of my tools."

"What?!"

"I mean it!"

Agatha resolved to a laugh. "I know you do… I was kidding, though."

A gruff voice popped out behind them without warning. "Mistress, de eediots haff gots into de klenk room. Oggie broke fife ov hyu leetle klenks."

_Sigh. There's always something._

.-.-.

Roxas is Sora. Roxas doesn't remember. Without a heart. A Nobody.

_…like I had a heart. It's kinda funny…_

Axel has strange thoughts during that strange time of partial consciousness, drifting between wakefulness and sleep. Sometimes these thoughts follow him into and out of strange dreams… dreams where he died, dreams were he lost his heart, dreams where he was nobody and yet very important to be nobody. And Roxas was there. Roxas made those dreams a little less… hopeless.

When he finally wakes up, he shakes his head vigorously as if to fling off the sleep and strange thoughts like water from his red hair. Then he'd shamble around the room like a zombie until he got his coffee. In short order, Roxas would come in—Roxas always woke up first—and grouse at Axel about being an idiot because he did or was going to do something stupid.

Axel was halfway through his coffee this morning and Roxas still hasn't shown up to do the ritual. As he became more attentive and thus more aware of this, a sudden feeling of foreboding swept over him, like he was doing something he wasn't supposed to be able to do by laws of nature and the universe was working to correct the error. Since he wasn't entirely sure how to describe something like that (especially in the morning), he mumbled to himself, "Coffee's too strong."

"Yeah, I had it on the burner for too long."

Roxas' voice nearly made Axel jump out of his skin. Though it wasn't that graphic, he was sufficiently startled enough to lurch forward and spill his remaining coffee. He turned and glared at the youth.

The blonde shrugged. "Didn't mean to sneak up on you."

"Yeah, yeah…" Axel frowned and put the cup aside while he cleaned up the mess with a paper towel. Even though it was an accident, Axel felt silly, like he was fooled in a haunted house by the dark, quiet part before a stupid plastic skeleton pops out. Roxas was much younger than Axel, hardly old enough to buy cigarettes, but was confident and determined in personality. Probably the only thing that could be blamed on his age was his short fuse. Axel was quite different. When he was younger, he was almost stoic, even cold, and a great liar. But he became more laid back and generally a nicer, warmer guy as time went along, especially after he started hanging out with Roxas. He was still cocky as hell, and nearly everyone he knew insisted on telling him that… but that sort of change wouldn't happen around Roxas, would it?

Roxas was easily his best friend in the world. Well, perhaps more than that. Actually, almost definitely more than that.

Axel threw away the soggy paper towels and poured himself another cup of coffee, this time making sure to put plenty of cream and sugar in it. "So? What's on the agenda today, huh?"

"I have a few ideas." Roxas was looking at Axel with one of _those_ smiles.

The redhead tilted his head, more than a little confused. After all, it was the morning. "I'm being serious."

"I am, too." The smile didn't drop until he started laughing. "Actually, I do have some ideas. There's a woman moving into the complex that needs help with carrying things."

"What? I don't feel like wasting my weekend carrying someone else's crap from a truck!"

"She's paying us for it."

"Well _that's_ different! When's she needing us?"

"In about fifteen minutes."

Axel gulped down the entire cup. "That's not even enough time for a quickie."

He rolled his eyes. "Later! It's too early in the morning for that."

* * *

I'm so terribly unsuited for shonenai/yaoi, especially since I haven't played the game in so long (and I never finished it, either, so I'm going to be rather uncanon). I don't hate yaoi, but most pairings of it are pure stupidity. I'm just out of my element so bad with this whole fic.  
But I actually made an update on a Friday! The Zeff fic will be updated soon, too; on the second page of that one and will likely post it up tomorrow.


	2. Children

Disclaimer: Chapter one.

My Friday update! Haha!

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* * *

Question #2: Now create children for them…_

The trouble that followed Kushami home was Ochazuke, born a few months later with two green eyes and a halo of blond hair that came in soon afterward. To be completely accurate, it didn't follow her from the doctor's office; she brought herself there for the test. But he was adorable and seemed like a normal, beautiful baby boy until he sneezed and a third eye—brown—opened up in the middle of his forehead. Genetics didn't really work that way, but who the hell knows when magic is involved, and magic _has _to be involved at this point. The baby was more active, and fussy, whenever he sneezed, and this persisted as he grew older, but at least the family he was born into was already ready for such things.

A year later, another kid popped out. This boy was named Chahan, and was born with a swath of black hair and large brown eyes. Within a month, it was discovered that he had a similar problem to his older brother, except the eye that he obtained upon sneezing was purple. The older one was already turning out to be the contemplative sort, and others that saw him were already cooing over his beautiful hair and eyes. Chahan, as he got older, gathered a bit more of a shy personality than Ochazuke, but still warm when he wasn't transformed.

It had been another two years when a little girl was born, who they named Muifan. The blue eyes she was born with settled into a deep purple, and her hair grew out to match it. It was really no surprise by this time when she also sneezed and obtained a third eye, this one a brilliant green. She developed into the sweet-n-sassy sort of girl quickly, both personalities holding that quality with the sweetness and the sassiness highly accented depending on two or three eyes, respectively. She was doomed to be teased by her older brothers, but it wasn't like she didn't retaliate sometimes.

As they grew older, all three of them were encouraged to train in martial arts with Tenshinhan, being an activity to keep them close to their father, as well as a healthy choice in general. The three enjoyed this activity no matter their form. They also would curiously tag themselves at their mother's ankle if their current transformation matches hers, the two-eyed versions learning how to cook from Lunch, and the three-eyed versions learning how to shoot from Kushami (that third eye seemed to really help accuracy, she commented frequently).

Presently, the siblings are thirteen, twelve, and ten years of age. The boys have just been dropped off from the bus, retuned from the middle school, when they bumped into their little sister who had walked home from the nearby grade school. Ochazuke was steadily ignoring the girls from the bus that yelled after him for dates, while the transformed Chahan approached his little sister with a wicked grin.

Muifan's two purple eyes looked up to Chahan's three. "Hi, Onisan."

"So are you ready for Okaasan's test today?"

"Test?"

His grin turned broader. "Don't you remember?" Of course she didn't; she was transformed at the time as well. "Okaasan is going to test us to see if we're practicing our shooting. She said she'll whip us if we don't pass."

Her eyes turned worried. "R-really?"

"You know how Okaasan is…"

"Come in, you three!" A cheerful soprano chirped. Lunch, purple hair and all, was poking out of the kitchen window. Chahan groaned.

"I want to teach you how to bake a cake today! So you should get in here before your father comes back from training."

Muifan smiled. "Okay, Okaasan!"

.-.-.

Jiraiya and Tsunade never got past arguing at nearly every turn. Although Tsunade had lost "everything" in that stupid, stupid tempting-fate bet Jiraiya made with her, he still contended that he owed her a lot, so he didn't take the full advantage that one who didn't know him as well would have expected him to take.

Regardless, Tsunade wanted her debt paid, even if Jiraiya didn't see a debt there, and he was, besides, one of the most precious people to her, if only because he was the last of her old teammates, their sensei included. They didn't really consider living together until Tsunade had gotten pregnant—finally the old maid spawns! Jiraiya called—and they found that their lives continued pretty much the same as it had been, except one could more easily keep an eye on the other. Maybe it was concern. Maybe they just didn't trust each other. Maybe it was both. In the end, it didn't really matter.

The child born from this bickering union was a hazel-eyed blond. What to name him spawned another argument. Jiraiya wanted to call him "Minato" (understandably), while Tsunade insisted on "Nawaki". They had somehow settled on an entirely different name, "Yashagoro", which seemed to come to them by divine inspiration at a glimpse of Sarutobi's face on the cliffside through the hospital window. The two continued to argue points of raising him throughout his childhood. It was early and readily agreed, for example, that he should learn ninjutsu. The argument lay on what sort of ninjutsu. Furthermore, they had a differing opinion of letting him sign a contract with the slugs or with the frogs for summoning. That one still hasn't been decided, since Yashagoro doesn't seem inclined either way.

Yashagoro developed into a rather confident youth despite this tumult. He had a semblance of his father's tough jaw, but this and his long nose that accompanied it was tempered by his mother's more acorn-shaped features, making his own face look sharp and sculpted. At age fourteen, he was already rather handsome, and though he wasn't the outright pervert as his father, he still took full advantage of his looks in getting frequent girlfriends.

Of course, he didn't have quite the wisdom of getting older yet; his girlfriends were often figuring out about the other and breaking up with him. How hard it is to be so handsome! It didn't occur to him yet to try strict monogamy, or to look specifically for girls that weren't. His tomcatting made Jiraiya sigh and mumble the age old, "Youth is wasted on the young" adage frequently—if only because he never was that successful but now knew at least some use of decorum and hiding successfully.

Well, at least it was funny when Yashagoro came home from school with a grimace before vacation. He sported a huge red welt on his right cheek. Jiraiya couldn't contain himself and his large grin broke out.

"Which one caught you this time?"

Yashagoro glared at his father then dumped his books and scrolls aside, making for the kitchen. His father's amused leer didn't relent, so he gave an answer while pulling out a carton of milk. "Reiko-chan."

"The redhead in team eight?"

Yashagoro nodded.

Jiraiya gave a guffaw. "It was a bad idea to try to start with her to begin with! She's at least twice as strong as you physically. I'm surprised I'll you've got is a mark on your face."

Yashagoro's mouth twisted as he poured the milk.

"What?"

"Reiko-chan didn't slap me. It was her little brother."

"Her little brother?!" Jiraiya threw back his head and laughed with the image of a seven-year-old boy slapping a rising star ninja like his son that was twice his age and about as much difference in height.

"He caught me off guard!" Yashagoro defended himself peevishly, but he instead tossed the milk back into the refrigerator and stomped to his room, slamming the door behind him. Jiraiya kept laughing and didn't pursue to apologize. The chuckles died down and he wiped a tear from his eye.

"Ah… he has his mother's temper."

.-.-.

When Kakashi found out Rin was pregnant, he wasn't sure if he should be jumping for joy or jumping out a window. This numb shock held over him until the later stages of her pregnancy, where the duality of dread and excitement increased ten-fold, and he eventually just wanted it to be over with.

The moment that little Suzu was finally born and he had gotten to see her face for himself, all that horrid dread washed away as quickly as a faint message in the beach sand, and the excitement took a backseat to the surreal knowledge that he was now holding his baby. Immediately he decided that she was the cutest thing that he ever saw, and was deeply happy that the child was his and that Rin bore it. She was definitely his baby; he couldn't get enough of her _smell_. Suzu's eyes turned the same chocolate brown that her mother had, and the crown of brown hair that she was born with eventually fell out and gave way to fine, silvery strands. Her laugh was like a bell.

Rin quickly got pregnant again, and had another little girl, who they named Kayou. This one kept her brown hair and developed deep, black eyes like her father. This time Kakashi wasn't so frightened about the birth, but was nearly as excited, and looked genuinely happy as anyone had ever been while he held her, the hardly-walking Suzu standing at his leg. Her biliruben was a little high, so she was born looking jaundiced, but there were no complications. Kakashi had taken to calling to calling her his dandelion child.

They hardly had two toddlers by the time Rin bore Kakashi a son. His eyes were black, his hair was gray… Baajiru was showing to have most of his father's characteristics already, at least physically. The differences came as he grew.

Even after this third one, Kakashi found himself nudging and suggesting to Rin to have another—which would likely lead to another, and another, and another—but Rin wasn't going to have any of it. "Three children is enough!" she cried, "Just what are you trying to do? Wear my canal out?"

Suzu and Kayou most likely would have ended up as the modestly pretty, somewhat shy girls that the guys might watch from a distance but never go after if they didn't grow up in a ninja household. That shyness they might have gotten cultivated into nearly an ideal of not showing off in class while they still shined and did well in their grades. Their jutsu was, of course, above average for their age—nearly impossible for them not to be, since their parents insisted on training them early—but they didn't make a spectacle of it.

Baajiru was a little different. He loved showing off, enjoyed training for the sole purpose of to show off, and was gung-ho about going first on something even when he didn't have a single clue what he was doing. He had no real sense of modesty at his age, and though he was talented and well-trained, was still over-hasty to the point that he was clumsy. A little too much energy considering who his parents were.

Now going full speed in childhood, at the ages of ten, nine, and eight, they know fully well about the son of the two Sannin, four years their senior. They know him fairly well, and the two girls snicker when he gets caught in the various schemes of love. Kakashi slowed some veiled caution with their amusement with him; father as he was, he didn't want to see his little girls get taken advantage of by an older boy. As it stood, four years was far too much of a gap. They were safe, for now. Instead, he was treated as the smoother, harder to hit older brother by the two, which made him their target of tag-team-teasing when they were looking for a challenge. The easy target was, of course, Baajiru.

Baajiru had every trapping of the youngest born, accentuated by being the only brother to two older sisters. This consequence, along with Baajiru's developing attitude to deal with it, gained the attention of a certain ninja.

"Oi! Baajiru!" The blond cried out, tipping back the wide-rimmed hat emblazened with the red "Fire" symbol.

The white-haired boy looked up at Naruto from his training in confusion. "What do you want, Hokage-sama?"

Naruto chuckled at his rude air. It reminded him of himself. "You don't have to call me that, really. Your father used to be Hokage for a little while, too."

"I know, I know," he groaned as a child who heard a story too many times did, "But that was a long time ago."

The young Hokage cleared his mouth, trying to pull up the serious "aristocratic" face that everyone expected of him. "Anyway, what I wanted is--"

"Hokage-sama!"

"Eh?" He looked over at the two approaching girls. "Oh, hi Suzu, Kayou."

The two giggled. "Nice for you to drop by, Hokage-sama," Suzu began, "Did you come to visit Otousan?"

"Well, I--"

"Okaasan is making a big dinner today, so I bet they expected you." Kayou took immediately Naruto's arm and started pulling him in.

Naruto grinned a large, bleach-white grin. "I guess staying for supper couldn't hurt."

In no time, they were already chattering away with the disarmed Hokage, leaving their little brother behind to roll his eyes.

The only easier target in the world than Baajiru was Naruto. He was so easily snowballed it was downright embarrasing.

.-.-.

**~!HEADLINE!~**

**LOST HETERODYNE AND WULFENBACH HEIR HAVE TWINS!**

Okay, so the two kids came out as the most well known children in the world merely because of their parents. That's not really a big surprise, considering. Agatha and Gil both briefly considered dumping the both of them into the same sort of bottom-of-the-barrel childhood that they had experienced for their own good… with trusted and reliable care, of course… but they ultimately decided they'd rather have the two there with them where they could keep a good eye on them. After all, the world knew about the twins, but they didn't know about Gil and Agatha.

The twins were a fraternal set, so they were not identical. The brown-haired, green-eyed boy was named Bartholomew, after Agatha's uncle, in a sort of memoriam to the older brother that she never knew. The blond girl with brown eyes was named Zeetha, once again by Agatha's insistence. The namesake herself was so proud of this honor that she her chest nearly exploded, so Gil wasn't about to take the name back on his own account.

Klaus pretended to "harrumph" on the subject of Agatha's pregnancy, but Gil was easily able to tell he was acting. But as soon as those two babies were born, the baron was the happiest grandfather in the world and heartily celebrated the births through his empire. Some of the families weren't so happy with this predicament. Others wholly supported it, either to gain good with the baron, or because they counted among Gil's and Agatha's friends from Castle Wulfenbach.

Punch and Judy were beyond proud, themselves. There was a slight difference of opinion between them and Von Pinn on how to raise these children—it ended up that Agatha and Gil laid down the law that they were going to raise them personally thank-you-very-much, a declaration that lasted as long as it took for them to get into a lab again, which was a good week after the births.

The spark bread true, of course, and the twins were shown as strong sparks very early on, making constructs and devices, humming away while they played in Castle Heterodyne and Castle Wulfenbach, either way inexplicably getting into and out of dangers associated with these places. It was good that they had so many caretakers; they got into enough trouble to run up a good mileage on all of them.

At the age of thirteen, they conspired together to break into their parents' labs (again), but this time to an older lab that was locked away since they were born. Surely there was something interesting in there! Maybe some wasps? Or some great old Heterodyne things? Some devices their grandfather worked on? Oh, maybe something from the Heterodyne Boys!

What they found was the trans-dimensional device—a door—that their parents were busy dismantling and examining before it was discovered that Agatha was with child. In short order, they were rehooking the strange device that they didn't yet know the function of yet, chose some arbitrary numbers on the dials in the console, and threw some juice in it to see if anything would happen.

Yeah. Something happened.

.-.-.

Maybe it was a strange choice, and one that was very often criticized by people who knew them, but Roxas and Axel had made up their minds firmly when they adopted Peter.

The orphan's hair was a brilliant red—nearly as brilliant as Axel's own—which fell in thick curls and framed his pale, freckled face, bringing out his green eyes. ?

Peter was having difficulty being adopted; he was a quiet kid that was strange and smart enough to unnerve most potential parents away from him and to a cheerier, dimple-faced kid. But these traits struck Axel as the best combination ever, considering who his parents were going to be.

The intelligence that the kid portrayed at his young age didn't bother them in the slightest: Roxas was glad that he didn't have to dote after him, and Axel was hardly responsible enough for himself. Peter was industrious, open-minded, and bright. He had no trouble in school except for those who teased him, but that really was to be expected. Kids always find something to tease other kids about.

Peter is fifteen years old this week, which made him think back on the time he'd spent with his fathers. Has it really been eight years? The time he spent alone and parentless seemed an eternity. He vividly remembered thinking that he was already getting too old for anyone to give him a second glance, and those few that bothered to were put off by his attitude. When Roxas and Axel took him, he kept expecting to be toted back to the orphanage, but after a year had passed, it dawned on him that he was there to stay.

But his life—although happy, full, and unique for his age—was still panning out to look dull in front of him. His fathers weren't special (right?) and this family, atypical as it was, wasn't the sort to attract any sort of adventure or even anything really interesting or fun.

Three seconds later, he was deposited some strange mechanical lab with nine other kids. The two that were at some sort of controls were looking on the rest of the bewildered children with the sort of shock one has when they really screw something up.

"Von Pinn is going to kill us," one of them muttered.

* * *

Oniisan – (big) brother.  
Okaasan – Mother.  
Otousan - Father.

I didn't realize until after I posted it that I didn't finish it. This is the updated version.


	3. Heart Attack

Disclaimer: Chapter 1.

Okay, from now on, the questions are going to be slightly tweaked for readability. If you see the meme, it will say things like "3" for the third child you made or "couple 2" for the couple you listed. The questions as they are written in here will replace the numbers with the actual names of the kids, and things like "couple 2" with "second couple".

Also, from this chapter on, continuity is rather… optional. The questions put things way out of sync so it can't be linear.

_

* * *

Question #3: Suzu's mother has a heart attack. How do Baajiru and Chahan react?_

Baajiru shuffled uncomfortably in the waiting room seat. The raging boredom was overwhelmed by worry and dread and a bit of that crawling fear that is very much like dread but smaller, less subtle, and more alive. He wrung his hands a dozen times, sighed in exasperation about twice as much, and was beginning to get a headache from the chattering of the hospital combined with the deafening silence about his mother's condition.

Suzu was the one at home with their mother when it happened. Rin had been acting strange all morning; she was on edge, as if in battle with an unknown number of unseen enemies. One could almost say she acted high-strung, but the behavior was more cautious and muted than that, like some paranoia that she wasn't letting on. Suzu wrote it off as average stress from ninja life and ignored it up until her mother was overcome with a sudden wave of nausea. She ran into the bathroom, weaving as she did, and dry heaved into the toilet for half an hour before she started vomiting. Afterward, when she tried to clean herself up she dropped the wet cloth she was using and grabbed her chest, trying with great difficulty to make out some words to Suzu—most likely, _"I'm having a heart attack. Get help,"—_before she crumbled over onto the tiled floor, passed out. It was all Suzu could do to not panic.

Right now, Baajiru felt like the rug was whipped out from underneath him. Sure, his parents were ninja and got injured, and he had even gotten used to visiting his father in a hospital bed when he had chakra burnout, but his mother was only ever in the hospital to visit him or to do some work herself.

He's already been on a few tough missions, and he was scared. But he was more scared now. What would he do if he lost her? He looked over at his sisters, who were deathly silent. Kayou paced about the waiting room while Suzu fretted with every magazine on the end table. They were just as worried as he was.

Then his gaze went over to his father, who was propped against a wall, reading one of his Icha Icha books as he always did. He looked calm, cool, collected… Baajiru envied his father and felt small before him. Why couldn't he keep together like him?

Just as he thought this, the book dropped from Kakashi's hand. He didn't move for a moment, then appeared confused that the book dropped. As he slowly leaned over to pick it up again, Baajiru could see that his hand was violently shaking. His father only made a passing try to read it again before depositing it back into his vest and angrily stuffing his hands into his pockets. Then he muttered something; Baajiru wasn't sure what it was, for he didn't hear most of it, but he caught the word "again" somewhere. He watched his father a long while after that; Kakashi turned away from everyone else and stared at the floor, still against the wall. He appeared fatigued and self-absorbed to a casual observer, but to Baajiru he looked lost and wounded. He didn't move from this position for a good while.

But even if his usually cool father was upset, his cool air still made Baajiru very aware that he was only a child in comparison. Baajiru's reddened eyes were dry and sore from all the crying of worry. And the knowledge that his father was worried, too, only made his worse.

"Hey, you guys," a familiar voice came in, "I've been looking for you. How are things holding up?"

Baajiru looked up to see Chahan, casually resting a bouquet of flowers on his shoulder and staring down at the younger boy with only two eyes (thankfully). Chahan was four years Baajiru's senior and of a completely different world (for lack of a better explanation), but since the strange mishap that made a junction between their worlds via Barry's and Zeetha's hijinks with science that ought not be tried with by mortal men, the whole group of kids, from the oldest to the youngest, had gained a friendship.

The young, white-haired boy tried a smile. The smile wasn't very good and didn't last more than a few seconds. "Hi Chahan. Where are your brother and sister?"

"They're indisposed at the moment," he answered with a sigh, meaning they were most likely transformed and committing havoc elsewhere. "I told Otousan that I was coming this way to check up on you guys. Some of the rest of the gang might come later. How is she doing?"

"I dunno. They haven't told us anything yet. I don't even think Papa knows." Baajiru wondered for a moment why Chahan wasn't talking to Suzu or Kayou. He glanced over at where his sisters were sitting; they were arguing about something and trying—rather unsuccessfully—to keep it from getting too disruptive. They were obviously on edge and hardly approachable.

"That must be really stressful," Chahan stated, "Otousan never gets sick, but he does get wounded, and Okaasan only gets colds every once in a while. If one gets bedridden, the other dotes on them. But I couldn't imagine either of them dealing with it in a hospital. Or the rest of us, for that matter."

"I think you'd be able to handle it pretty well." Baajiru looked back down at his hands and wrung them nervously again. "I wish I could be cool and calm like you and my dad. Not that he isn't upset, too… but… You're like your dad is. Calm."

Chahan shrugged with a smile. "Only some of the time. Personally, I think I'd be freaking out if this kind of thing happened to Okaasan, and Otousan would only be calm for about an hour before he started yelling at the staff."

This image made Baajiru blink. "You really think so?"

"I know so. Once Okaasan was out longer than she said she would be for a heist by two hours. He seemed collected going out, but as soon as he got to the gang house that she robbed, he started busting heads and demanding they tell her where she was only to find he just missed her going home." Chahan shook his head and laughed. "He didn't even notice that they were already cleaned out and scared out of their wits."

Baajiru started laughing into his hands.

A nurse came into the waiting room and started looking around before she found Kakashi leaning against the wall and approached him. He popped out from his personal world and they spoke in low tones for some long moments. Finally, a great sigh came from his chest and he said, "Can we see her?"

The children all popped up to command on that phrase. The nurse noticed and said, in a tone for them all to hear, "Yes, she's asking for all of you. Room 215. You may all go, but please make sure that you don't stress or excite her. She's still very weak."

"Arigatou," Kakashi said and made a beckoning to the others to follow before he started down the hall at a fast pace. They obeyed, including Chahan, and found that it was hard to keep up with his fast pace without flat-out running down the hospital halls. He knew the hospital well, and found the room without any delay.

They had given Rin a private room, kept successfully quiet despite the bustle of the hospital outside. She lay plaintively back on the hospital bed, the back raised enough that she looked like she was just casually sitting. Her smile couldn't be easily seen for the oxygen mask on her face, so she crinkled her eyes up like Kakashi would and folded her hands on top of the white sheets. They piled in, Kakashi himself immediately taking himself to her side. Although there was a chair there, he remained standing in his typical crooked manner, looking down at her.

She carefully removed the mask and looked down at her lap. "I'm sorry I worried you all."

"You should be," Kakashi said softly, "How do you feel?"

"Still a little weak, but they did quick work," She proceeded to explain the medical process she underwent. "They administrated a thrombolytic as soon as they got to the scene, but it looks like they didn't need it; they think now it was brought by a coronary spasm, not by a blockage in the artery. They got me on oxygen as soon as they could, and right now they're prescribing me on beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, and an antiplatelet—probably aspirin—to keep me comfortable and allow my heart some time to recoup. I already know the proper physical therapies, so it probably won't be long before I can go home. Only a few days."

"Maa… I guess it can't be helped," Kakashi returned, appearing his normal self but still speaking softly, "It'll be hard to kiss you with that thing on your face."

"Now you know how I feel," she retorted with a smile, "But I'll see if I can have them put me on nasal cannula instead of the full-blown mask. This thing annoys me anyway." She slid it back over her mouth and reached up to make sure it fit snugly.

Baajiru weaved his way forward and pulled himself up into her bed, very much back to being the little eight-year-old that he was. "Mama…"

"Ah, Baajiru honey," she looked a little confused as to what to do with him, then resolved to wrap an arm around him and pull her youngest child to her. In two seconds flat, her two girls joined in the pile on the bed, fretting and trying their best to not lay right on top of her as to possibly discomfort her. Kakashi chuckled at the homey sight, grateful that he was able to calm down the jitters he'd been hiding.

Chahan felt a little out of place seeing this. These people, after all, weren't his family, even if they were now his good friends. He awkwardly stood there a while before Kakashi tilted his head towards him. "Chahan. You brought Rin a gift, right?"

"Huh?" Chahan went blank with confusion a moment. "Oh! Right!" He approached and bowed respectively to Rin, holding the flowers towards her. "I brought you flowers with wishes that you'll get well soon, Rin-san. The rest of my family sends their regards, too. They plan to visit you later."

Kakashi gathered the bouquet and looked for a vase to put them in while Rin pulled off her mask again. "Thank you, Chahan. That's very thoughtful of you. It's lovely that you dropped by, and I look forward to seeing the rest of your family later." She said this all as warmly and succinctly as she could to pass the message before returning the mask.

"Aa," Kakashi grunted in agreement, "It's good that you dropped by, Chahan. It's horrendously boring when you're at the hospital. Patients latch on any and all company they can when they're confined here. I should know."

Chahan felt a muted blush come to his cheeks. He thought to himself that he shouldn't feel embarrassed about this.

"I'm glad you came, too, Chahan!" Baajiru called out from his mother's arms. His sisters prodded him harshly for letting his voice rise. He continued a little quieter, "We've all been very worried about Mama. So I've felt kinda alone and scared before you came in. You cheered me up a lot!"

This made Chahan scratch his head with embarrassment and Kakashi look at his son with an uninterpretable look in his eye. Rin allowed a slight giggle into her mask.

"Anyway, I should leave," Chahan declared and gave another bow. "You may get more visitors later. Good health." He turned and narrowly avoided slamming into a green-clad ninja who just entered before he exited.

"Ah!" Gai shouted as soon as he saw Rin and her family. Tears poured like waterfalls at the sight. "What a scene of youth and togetherness! An oxygen mask on your face, your children still pile on your bed despite your condition, with your husband at your side. At least if I had to lose the battle for your love with you to Kakashi, he has proved to be truly worthy of the prize!" He wiped his leaking eyes with his forearm.

Rin gave a light, nervous laugh at the exaggeration and took off her mask. "You're very kind, Gai-san, but really I am fine. I'll be out in a few days, a week at the most."

"Such resolve!" Gai responded.

"She's not dying, Gai," Kakashi answered in a neutral tone, "But she's still a little weak. Quiet down."

Gai looked upon Kakashi with his usual grudging respect. "You're able to be cool in such a situation, and yet still show caring?"

Kakashi didn't have to respond, because he found something more interesting as Rin moved to return her mask and he recalled that he hadn't hissed her yet. Fluidly, he pulled down his mask and swooped in to do so before her oxygen mask reached its destination. The cool gas hissed against his cheek and into his ear, which was more amusing than annoying to him at the moment. They kissed a few moments before she giggled and pushed him away to put her mask back where it belonged. His own went up as well.

Apparently that's when their next visitor chanced to show up, who was momentarily waylaid from bumping into the departing Chahan. The Hokage came in just as the masks were replaced, and upon hearing Gai gush about the beauty of true love's kiss gave a shout in anger, grabbing into his messy yellow mane. "How do I keep missing Kakashi-sensei's face?! It's not fair!"

* * *

Sensei – If you don't know what this means, kindly begin to stomp your own foot. This can be found in English dictionaries with its thorough usage by now!


	4. It's Okay if You're Gay

Disclaimer: The last sentence is the truth. It's not in chapter one. The previous sentence is a lie.

I didn't plan that the answer would end up this way for this chapter. It's just how the shipping questionnaire was set up… luck of the draw, so to speak. I'm not interested in promoting a nature vs. nurture debate here.

_

* * *

Question #4: Peter falls in love with Bartholomew. How will their parents take this?_

Barry is really a fantastic guy.

Of all the ten that came together that day from the different "universes", Peter was the most normal. It was an unusual novelty for him, but it soon wore off; he might've been smart and talented for his age, and his fathers did well to make sure that he was in shape and able to defend himself from any bullying, but compared to those who could summon fire and energy, fly and hang upside down from tress and walk on water, and invent and build devices for virtually any situation, he was a squirrel in the jungle.

Not that he held this against the others; he still liked them all quite a lot, and valued his friendship with every one of them. But Barry was probably the most accepting of the nine, the one who made him feel most at home and least confused about all the goings on surrounding them, further confused by the lineal fluctuations of the device that allowed them all to meet together. Of any friend that Peter ever had, Barry was definitely the closest.

Instead of feeling envy, he was able to now admire his friends, and he admired Barry the best. It wasn't that Barry was better than his sister at designing and figuring out new things—in fact, the twins worked best together—but he certainly stood out for Peter. Soon, when he went to visit his friends, although he was happy to see every one of them, he always felt a slight more disappointment if Barry was absent, or was markedly more happy when he wasn't. He decided that perhaps Barry was… his best friend? Yes, best friend makes sense.

But it wasn't until he found himself going on and on about his friends, with a very large emphasis on a particular one, at the dinner table that he began to notice something. His fathers were looking up from their meals, eyes trained on their son curiously and carefully. What was that emotion in their eyes? Fear? Caution? Were they just analyzing? It was very intense regardless.

"Umm…" Peter started and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "…Is there something wrong."

Axel leaned back and frowned with a sheepish, uncomfortable look to him. He put his arms behind his head and kept leaning until the chair tilted and balanced. "It's not like that, Peter. No, there's nothing wrong…"

Roxas threw his spoon down into his empty bowl (it made a loud clatter though the motion wasn't that jarring itself) and held his chin in thought. "Barry is a nice boy."

Peter felt confused. "Well, yes, he is, but…" He went silent.

The younger of the two fathers kept thinking for a bit before he threw his hands in the air. "Peter! How close are you and Barry, do you think?"

"Huh?" The young redhead scratched the back of his neck. "I don't know. Pretty close, I guess. Out of everyone, he's usually been the nicest. The best I could relate to."

"Does he feel the same way?" Axel cut in.

Roxas glared at him. "Damnit Axel!"

Peter blinked a little bit before he came to realize what they meant. "Oh. Oh! You think… You think that…?"

Axel continued, undeterred by Roxas. "You talk about him a lot. Just about all the time. If you go to visit them in that nexus he and his sister made, you come back looking sad if he wasn't there, or you come back terribly late to hang out with him if he was."

Peter sat still a moment. That didn't occur to him before. But, then again, did he really think of any girls as strongly as he felt of Barry?

Roxas seemed a little miffed else wise. "Great. I think we turned our son gay."

Axel wanted to be angry at the comment, but instead he burst out in a snicker was too fast for him to hold back. But he caught up to it and coughed it away, acting like it never happened.

Peter's eyebrows furrowed, but it didn't make him look any less flabbergasted. "I don't think it works that way, Dad." He picked up a utensil and started cutting his food again. "I read before that children from gay parents have the same ratio to be gay as straight parents."

Roxas glared at them both. "This _is_ serious, you know. It's not easy. We don't even know what people in Barry's world thinks about.—" He put his fingers up in the air and made quote marks with distain. "—_Alternative lifestyles_."

"They're a lot more alternative than anything any of us could conjure up," Axel retorted without much concern. "Besides, they seemed alright with us. What I'm worried about is how they take the idea of a boy being interested in their son. That turns it into a completely different matter."

Peter narrowed his eyes. "I don't appreciate you deciding that I'm gay for me."

Axel made a wide, mischievous grin. "Sorry, Son."

Roxas sighed and got up with his empty plates. "That's fine. You go ahead and figure it out. But if Barry hurts you…"

"Barry isn't going to hurt me, Dad! He's my friend!"

"I'm just worried!" Roxas retorted. "He might hurt you without him realizing it." He shook his head and dumped his plates in the sink, once again making a loud clamor. "Just tell us if you need anything, okay? It wasn't all sunshine and kisses with Axel and I, either, so we want you to know that you have our support if you ever need it, okay?"

Axel shrugged and let his chair lurch forward before he rose and slapped a hand down on his son's shoulder. "We're here for you, got it?"

Peter looked between them, then nodded. "Yes, Dad."

.-.-.

_Yeah, this is infatuation, all right,_ Peter admitted to himself, _…if I don't outright call it "love"._

The redhead struggled with this question the following week. Now that he thought about it, Berry was really… well… _attractive_. Had he noticed it before and not thought anything about it? Maybe he just called it envy before… but he never felt that _envious_ of Barry.

Now terribly self-conscious, however, he watched Barry a little more closely, though he attempted to look as if he was still just as interested in hanging out with the rest of the group as he was with his "interest". It wasn't very successful; Yashagoro immediately recognized that Peter was acting strangely and started jabbing him on it. And when Yashagoro, the oldest of the four children from the world of ninja, noticed something, it made the Hatake children notice.

Peter tried to play it off, but these attentions from the ninja just made it harder for him to keep his "act" straight about figuring out if he… well… if he was straight. But the signs were pretty much there for the reading: he had already thought of Barry as something more than a friend, even if he still said "friend", even if Barry never acted any way of the sort in turn. He never came across another guy that he had liked in such a way, though. Or a girl, for that matter. Maybe this was just peculiar to Barry?

"Barry," he started at one point, cautiously testing the waters, "Have you been having very good luck with… um… _girls_ in your world?"

"Girls?" Barry looked at Peter quizzically. "I guess not, but I think I'd want to be with a girl that had the Spark, and there aren't a lot of girls with the Spark. At least that stay alive… Why do you ask?"

Peter made a calculated shrug. "It's just that we all hang out so much in each others' worlds—I probably hang out the most in your world—but we don't really _know_ anything about them." Or each other, he almost added.

"That's true, I guess, but your world, I think, is one of the most fascinating."

Peter blinked. "Really?"

"Sure. The technology you have… the most impressive thing about it is all the proliferation! And you succeeded in making a vast network of all people on your Earth so that they might continue the progress. Then there's the circuitry… fantastically elegant! And space travel! Well… the mind just _boggles_."

"But the three-eyes have some similar technologies… and better, at that."

"Yes, but theirs is still somewhat more haphazard. The capsules, for example, certainly are brilliant, but are certainly mostly the work of one of their Sparks, that Dr. Briefs that they're always telling me about. He obviously has some sort of market conquest, and his daughter will most certainly inherit it and she also has the Spark. Not like your world at all. I can't even _imagine_ how you get Sparks to work together long enough to make such a streamlined, widespread network."

The redhead smiled. "I guess it is pretty impressive, huh?"

"Of course it is!"

.-.-.

Zeetha noticed Peter's peaked attention to her twin long before it dawned on Barry. She giggled about it privately for a little while, observing the potential drama with the same sort of enthusiasm she had for any scientific observation. Peter, however, was an introvert that had no understanding of making moves, and her brother remained rather oblivious to the whole thing. So she decided to bring up the matter to him herself.

"Sooo…" she started with a grin, looking over her shoulder as she shook out the fiberglass dust from the tarp she was meaning to salvage for a flyer. "What do you think about Peter?"

He didn't look up from his work desk. "Peter? He's a fun guy to hang out with. Probably my best friend out of everyone from the different worlds."

"Is that so?"

"Uh huh," he looked up, cleaning grease from a glass cylinder. "Why?"

"Did it ever occur to you that he might be…"

"…Might be?"

She grinned wide. "…Interested in you?"

He blinked and tilted his head. "Wha?"

"He's a good catch, I'd say. Very handsome, and nice, red curls, hmm?"

"What? Wait a second, sis…"

"What's today's discussion about?" another voice came in. Agatha's head was peaking in the room. "You two look like you're about to go into a huge debate about something."

Zeetha's large grin kept and she hopped over to her mother's side before Barry could say anything. A few whispers into her Agatha's ear informed her of the discussion. Her green eyes went a little wide, but she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "Peter is a good boy. I don't see the problem."

Barry's face went dark with a blush. "I didn't say I was interested in Peter. And who says that Peter has a crush on me? And if he does, what of it?"

"Oh, right," Agatha answered, wide eyed and embarrassed to how she was already taking this. "Well, he doesn't have the spark, but it's not like you'd be having children." Then she added after a thought. "Unless you wanted to _make_ them."

"I can't believe this!" Barry threw his hands up and looked like he was about to stomp off.

"Can't believe what?" This time it was Gilgamesh looking into the lab. "What's the discussion about today?" Zeetha gave a laugh.

Agatha looked over at her husband calmly. "Peter is in love with Barry."

"MOTHER!" Barry shrieked, his cheeks now darker than Maxim's cape.

Gil's eyes went wide. "Really?"

"Well, Zeetha just told me about it, but now that I think of it…"

"Hmm…" Gil brought a hand to his chin. "I see what you mean."

"FATHER!"

"There's nothing to be ashamed of, Barry," Gil said with a shrug, then something dawned on him, "Except… if it continues…"

"If vat continues?" Oggie's head popped in.

"Oh great!" Barry slammed his hands onto his face as if in hysteria. "Let's let the J_ä_gers in the conversation, too!"

Agatha grabbed Ognian's face and shoved him back out with an order to go do something else. He made an unperturbed "hokay" before he left.

"Anyway, it's not a problem with me…" Gil continued, "…but what about _my_ father?"

Agatha cringed. "You think the Baron will make a problem out of it?"

"That's just the thing: I don't know how he'd take it!" He shook his head. "How do you think Peter's parents are taking it? Do you think they noticed?"

"Don't you remember?" Zeetha chimed in, "Peter was adopted by a two men."

"That doesn't mean anything!" Barry cut in peevishly.

Zeetha shrugged. "I didn't say it did. I was just telling Father what he wanted to know."

"He didn't ask if Peter had homosexual parents!"

"Oh, that's right, he does have two fathers," Agatha mused, "…So how do they know which one he's talking to?"

Barry glared at his mother, expecting another uncomfortable comment. "What?"

"Does he call them by their first names, or does he call them by different forms of 'father'…?"

"Uh…" Barry blinked and shook his head. "He calls them both 'Dad' I think."

"Then how do they know which one he's talking to?"

"I think he has a slightly different tone depending on which one he speaks to; a separate timber and pitch in his voice. They seem to have picked up on the distinction and developed it a while ago."

"Really? Fascinating!"

"I know!" Barry continued. "It's astounding what the human mind can pick up, that we subconsciously pick up on many small variables that we can differentiate between barely different tones of voice and other sorts of nuances without even thinking about it."

"It truly is," Gil came in with a nod. "Even the difference between a Spark and a normal person could very well lie on small things about how similar perceptions are interpreted."

Zeetha beamed in after that. "Yeah, Grampa was just talking about that yesterday."

The conversation continued off track into more varied branches for the next two hours. It was late that night before any of them realized the original subject hadn't been properly resolved.

.-.-.

The next time that Barry saw Peter, the whole group of kids had gone to Peter's world to get some pizza and ice cream (Peter insisted they'd all enjoy it). The redhead was busy consuming a ham-and-pinnaple slice when Barry plopped down in the seat in front of him.

Peter looked up at him, still chewing"Er, what's up?"

"My sister and my parents like to meddle a lot in things that aren't their business," he started off. "What about your fathers?"

Peter swallowed and put down his slice. "They're the same. Jumping to conclusions, too."

"What sort of conclusions?"

He tried a nonchalant shrug, not helping at all the blush on his cheeks. "Just, you know."

There was a silence for a few seconds.

"So, what's that taste like?" Barry said, pointing at Peter's pizza. "Fruit and meat together like that on cheese?"

"Oh it's great! Hawaiian is my favorite. Why don't you have a slice?"

Barry helped himself and took a bite. "I never would have thought of such a combination! Brilliant!"

Peter gave a silly grin and continued with his own piece.


	5. Marauding Harmonius Winged Ants

Disclaimer: It's chapter one. Or it's in chapter one. Something like that.

I suppose a few of you were waiting for the next shot for Matsubaran, but I'm on a very difficult chapter of that at the moment. Besides, I haven't updated this one in a while, and I still have thirty chapters after this to do.  
Note: they used to be "wasps", but I figured that was a little too close to Revenants. I apologize for its shortness; I just couldn't flesh this answer out any more for the life of me.

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_Question #5: Ochazuke, Chahan, and Suzu go to a concert but don't come back. What is Zeetha's initial reaction?_

"You want to come with us, Suzu?" Ochazuke asked with his back against the nexus door. His voice was keen and had more emphasis on high vowels and growling consonants than he did in his softer-spoken times.

The young kunoichi's brown eyes went up to the two older boys. They had their third eyes out and were both grinning wide with mischief. They could mean a lot trouble for her, especially if they're only asking her to come with them, she being a few years younger than the both of them, a significant difference at this age. It was suspicious.

"I dunno. Is Muifan-chan going?" she asked tentatively. Their sister, Muifan, had become her good friend since the two were the same age and both had to deal with siblings (albeit with different problems and on the opposite side of the age spectrum). If they were asking _her_, then she supposed Muifan must have been insisting on it. At least, then, it would be okay.

She had supposed wrong. "Naah, she's in her wuss state at the moment," Chahan said with a chuckle. Ochazuke kept his grin and only shrugged. "Anyway, she's not interested and we have another ticket. Everyone else seems busy with stuff; even Yashagoro has a date or somethin'. So _you_ wanna come? You're the adventurous type, right?"

She nearly blushed at the compliment, but she kneaded her hands against each other. Maybe she was the adventurous type _for her age_, but she was a third or fourth generation ninja that lived in a village of people with similar backgrounds, so "adventurous" was probably a bad qualifier to use since she wasn't even old enough yet to graduate from the academy. Besides, there was no telling what her parents were going to say if they found out, and her younger siblings would almost _certainly_ tell on her.

But then again… "What sort of concert is it?"

"Oh, it's going to be great," Ochazuke jumped back in, egging a ramble, "The band is a major thrasher from North Capital that really pulls out all the stops in their performances. They're called Fuzz Granite, but I doubt you've heard of them. They have the regular set of drums, singer, bassist, and have rhythm and lead guitars. Singer and rhythm aren't much, but everyone else is pretty great. Plus their openers are some of the most metal names you'd ever hear… if you _had_ heard them before, that is. I know they're listing in _my_ favorites. Chahan's too. It should be a really fantastic concert: laser show, some hard rock… the works, you know? You'll have fun, I promise!"

Zeetha was walking past the nexus and had caught the end of Ochazuke's explanation. A concert? Metal? Laser show? Hard rock? The works? They _couldn't_ be going anywhere on either of their worlds. They _had_ to be going somewhere on _her_ world. Only on her world did Sparks make such things into a concert.

She didn't really know, since she had no idea what most of those things they were describing to her even were. Regardless, she agreed with a nod. They had such interesting things in their world, anyway. It couldn't hurt to have a new experience. "Sure, okay. I like music, and it sounds fun. I'm getting bored of the same old music my parents listen to, anyway."

"That's the spirit!" Chahan said, slapping her on her back the way he would his little sister. The impact nearly made her double over. "Muifan doesn't know what she'll be missing! I promise you'll have a blast, Suzu."

"Okay, but _promise_ you won't tell. Otousan and Okaasan must only think I'm hanging out with Muifan today."

"Sure, sure. They won't know a thing."

Zeetha continued listening in on the conversation, and was just about to pipe up, but the two boys were already leading away the younger Hatake Suzu, not sparing the Heterodyne girl a glance. She huffed.

Oh well. She had more important things to do. Her father was going to kill her if she didn't go on grease trap duty. It was so stupid that she was getting punished for turning Krosp's snow-white fur a deep navy blue. It was an accident and it was partially his fault for coming in the lab when the light was on. Besides, the dark color made him look much more regal, which _should_ have pleased him with his Napoleon complex, but noooo…

.-.-.

Seven hours later, the three still hadn't come back to use the nexus to go back to their homes, and it was surely past all their bedtimes… It was a shock that their parents weren't coming through and raising hell trying to find out what happened (which they did do often enough, at least Suzu's parents). What could have happened? Well, Ochazuke and Chahan were in their more reckless states, so it really could be anything. There was no end of trouble they could get into. But still, they were pretty good at shooting and martial arts for their ages, and Suzu wasn't weak for a ten-year-old girl, either. Just what could have happened to make them so late?

Wasn't there something relating to music in the news recently? Oh right! Marauding harmonious winged ants in the Wastelands! They were drawn by the sound of half cadences and the natural smell of velvet and opera glasses every musical show exudes. A swarm of them could pick an adult arthrobull to its bare exoskeleton before they finished performing the first motive of Harbolyst's 6th Symphony. Nasty little creatures. Even the Baron had trouble controlling the infestations in some areas, forcing him to ban the transport of musical instruments through certain roads.

Yep, hate to run across those things. They'd ruin even the best fighter's day. And they were drawn to musical performances…

No! It couldn't be!

"MOTHER! FATHER! BARRY!" She shouted in panic, dashing out into the hall and down towards her parents' main lab.

Agatha looked up from the dingbot she had been tinkering on. Gilgamesh was near by and torso-deep into an engine when he called to her. "Yes, Zeetha? What is it?"

"I think they're dead!" She proclaimed, and burst into tears.

Gil popped his head up, hitting the hood of the flyer he was working on in the process. "Ow! Ugh, who do you think is dead, dear?"

Zeetha wiped her eyes furiously, hating that she was crying like this. "Ochazuke, Chahan, and Suzu went out to a concert and haven't come back!"

Barry came in about that point. "What was all the screaming about, sis? …Hey, what's wrong?" There was an unusual quality of the family where nothing could stay secret for very long except when the secrecy might serve as a vehicle for misconstruing and complicating matters. It was most likely inherited and connected with the same chromosome associated with the Spark somehow.

"She thinks that some of your friends are in trouble," Agatha supplied.

Gil came forward and sat his hands down on his daughter's shoulders. "Why do you think they're dead if they just went to a concert?"

"The marauding harmonious winged ants, remember? They definitely went to a Spark concert somewhere on our world and those ants must have gotten to them! They left seven hours ago and still aren't back! That concert has to be over by now, and besides, Ochazuke and Chahan can _fly! _What if they were eaten, picked down to their bones?"

"They left seven hours ago?" Her mother thought a moment. "Yes, they should be back by now since they can travel so quickly without assistance. Something must have happened."

"I still wonder how they're able to fly like that," Gil said with a bit of a twist to his mouth. He set it aside as a project for another day; immediate matters were more important. "But those three aren't your typical children. It would have to be something pretty formidable to take them down. Still, those ants are pretty tough…"

Barry knitted his brows together. "I… I guess that is possible. The ants would be the most likely things to get to them. Ochazuke, Chahan, and Suzu could take down most single people or monsters roaming around the Wastelands, but a swarm of little monsters is something else entirely. Besides, they _are_ drawn to music, aren't they?" He then hit his forehead with sudden realization. "If only I thought to warn them about the danger! I heard some of the conversation, but I wasn't thinking! I just thought they were going to a show somewhere on one of their own worlds!"

"The ants seem to be the most logical conclusion." Gil nodded somberly. "It might be too late; those ants can reduce a human to bones in ten measures of common time in andante. Give them twenty more and they've eaten your bones as well."

Agatha frowned in anger. "This isn't right. Maybe it's too late to save them, but we can go try, right? Let's find out where the concert they went to was being held and go there ourselves!" She smiled at her husband. "Agreed?"

He knew that adventurous look and smiled back, feeling hopeful. "Let's go. The flyer should be operational now. Get your tools quick, you two! I'll get some information from my father's men on good whereabouts to start looking!"

.-.-.

The tired troop nearly screamed in exacerbation when the three kids that they went searching for the night before appeared safe and sound coming from their own universes the next morning. They each threw a fit, angry with the concertgoers without explaining why.

"I don't see the fuss," Chahan said, third eye out and hands crossed behind his head. Suzu frowned while she stood by him, rubbing an ear that had gone partially deaf from the loud music the night before. She had fun, but it _really _wasn't what she expected.

"Please don't mind my brother," Ochazuke offered immediately, wearing only two eyes himself. He had his hands up and was sporting the most reassuring smile he could muster. "We didn't know you guys were listening in, or that you would get so worried about us. We came back safe, even kept good care of Suzu."

Zeetha gave him an ugly grimace. "I should tell your parents. In fact, I should tell _Suzu's_ parents."

Suzu's brown eyes went wide and she gasped. "What? No! Please don't! Otousan and Okaasan can be so protective sometimes! I have no idea what they'll do if they find out that the reason I was out last night was because I was with Ochazuke and Chahan instead of playing with Muifan-chan!"

"My brother did pressure her into it; it's more his fault than hers," Ochazuke piped in. His mother had a 50/50 chance of not caring in the least, but his _father _on the other hand...

Chahan hit his brother in the shoulder. "You pressured her, too, you know."

Zeetha stalked towards Chahan and glared. He looked down at her, mustering his harshest, most superior glare, but had to hold back a gulp. Zeetha strangely reminded him of his mother when she was in her transformed state at times, and it wasn't a comfortable comparison.

"I was worried about you three, you know! We had thought you were going to a concert in _our_ world!"

"What?" Chahan exclaimed with a laugh. "Why would we do something stupid like go jogging through your world alone? This place is dangerous!"

"Exactly!" She persisted. "We were worried you were eaten by flying ants and took all night to look for you! You should at least apologize for making us worry!"

He frowned, though a bead of sweat formed on his brow and ran down. "Why should I apologize? Just because you thought we were stupid enough to run around in this crazy place without help? Maybe _you_ should apologize to _us_ for thinking we're so stupid."

"WHAT?! I was honestly worried about all of you and you feel like you can treat me like this?!"

Ochazuke made a panicked face and threw motions at his little brother to cease and desist, a futile effort while Chahan's third eye was out but it was better than just standing there. At this rate, they really _were _going to get ripped to shreds by a swarm of monsters made by some mad genius, and _not _random ones from this worlds' Wastelands. He wasn't in the state of mind to tempt fate like the transformed Chahan was.

It was Suzu that saved the day by hugging the older girl without any warning. The motion took Zeetha by surprise, which was what she intended, so that when Suzu shot her the peaceful smile she'd learned from her mother, Zeetha backed down. Chahan gave a snort but didn't press the issue further.

Ochazuke breathed a deep breath of air and smiled. "Well, now that that crisis is averted, maybe we should figure out how to bribe Kayou and Baajiru who just walked in during your argument?"

Suzu shrieked and ran over to her grinning younger siblings.


	6. The Potato Meister

Disclaimer: Chapter one, my friends.

I decided to try to go through all the questions quickly. There are too many questions to answer slowly and carefully like I've been doing, and some of them are just plain hard to beef up, so many, including this, will be short and _not _on Fridays. (And yes, there will be Matsubaran tomorrow.)

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Question #6: Barry wins an award. What for?_

Probably more impressive than the actual invention Barry made was the trouble he had to go through showing that he was, indeed, a capable spark that didn't have to rely on the mechanisms or popularity of his parents or grandparents. Also quite impressive was the fact that this latest bout in sibling rivalry, brought to the stage, had gone in his favor this time. He'd be patting himself on the back if the suit he was wearing was just tight enough around his shoulders to make that action somewhere between uncomfortable and impossible.

But, what can you do? You win an award for your invention and get invited to a big gala in your honor, you have to wear these monkey suits, even when you're still just thirteen. He wondered a moment if he should wear a family insignia or not, then simply picked up the winged trilobite and set it around his neck without really thinking. It was the closest thing to a compromise that he was going to get between the winged Wulfenbach rook and the Heterodyne seal. Sure his grandfather won't be as flattered, but the Baron was, by his construct heart, a family man and easy to console if you're his grandchild.

He vaguely considered bringing his device to one of the _other_ worlds to show off instead of entering it into a competition here, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be as well appreciated elsewhere. Well, Peter's world might appreciate that it's self-fueling, but otherwise they would probably declare it _impractical_ (honestly!). So, here his was, in an Annual Convention of Madboys, shoulder to shoulder with every spark of the realm, including his " aunts and uncles" from Payne's circus.

The dinner was lavish, so much so that he wondered if a fellow madboy was the chef, heavily tempered by a more rational and well-meaning non-spark, of course. His sister was by him in a fine dress that might have been designed by Tarvek (his father still bickered with Sturmvoraus, but they were friends, whether or not they wanted to admit it). She at first wanted to glare at him since he was—by pure luck, of course—the man of honor at this banquet and not herself. However, she had already resolved to beating him soundly next year with an invention she already had cooking up (literally) back in the lab.

Well, as long as it didn't break out and wreck his own lab, or wasn't anything kin to the Calming Pie, he didn't really care what his sister was working on. Just because they were twins didn't mean they had to keep track of each other at all times.

"And now, the winner of this year's junior science portion in the Thirteenth Annual Convention of Madboys… Bartholomew Heterodyne!"

Applause came, and he bowed respectively as he rose and came up to the podium. "Good evening, fellow sparks. Uhh, as you know I'm one of the twins born from Lady Heterodyne and Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. My sister, Zeetha, also competed this year, but I was chosen above her very clever machine that produces industrial ivory from even the most stubborn mimmoths." There was a slight chuckle, and he smiled, but dared not laugh himself, for he felt his sister's glare from the audience. "The judges have chosen me for my invention. Gentlemen, I give you… the Potato Meister!"

With a flourish, the red sheet that covered a large mound had been pulled away, unveiling a humming, churning, whistling piece of equipment, shiny with brass fixtures and pistons.

"The Potato Meister," Barry continued, "is a marvel ideal for any kitchen; much more efficient than any food processor or washing machine, and quicker than your average housekeeping clank. Allow me to demonstrate…" Barry produced a potato and plunked it into an opening near the top. With some clicks, clatters, and whirrs, a clean, white potato rolled out the other end and teetered on a little platform before he picked it up again. He held it before him, letting his audience see how perfectly smooth the surface was, like the skin had melted off and left only the healthy, starchy white meat behind. Applause came.

"That, of course, is just the beginning…" This time, Barry pulled out a bundle of carrots and fed them into the hole. Slashing, whirring, chopping… soon there was a pile of neatly chopped carrots deposited on that platform. "Oo"s and "aah"s accompanied.

"Of course, if it could only do these things, I wouldn't have won the contest, right? True with the technologies of my Heterodyne heritage, this device can also produce a very specific resonance with some interesting properties. Allow me to demonstrate…" This time, a figurine resembling a person was placed before the device. Barry flipped a few switches, and the resonance hummed. The figurine vibrated slightly and began to melt. "Directed at a person, this resonance can literally melt them. Flesh, bones… everything! Within thirty seconds, an adult male of one-hundred-fifty pounds, while under the barrage of this harmonic frequency, will be rendered into a pile of goo. This technology can also be used to wash dishes easily, quickly, and hygienically!

"And the best part… ladies and gentlemen… is that it runs on… potato peelings!"

Applause came again. Barry hammed it up and bowed, ignoring the rolling eyes of his sister, before he finally retreated back to his seat.


End file.
